Issue is, Alliance has maybe three realms that are like this. Or even two, since Argent Dawn is RP so it is not quite as active. And Horde has many times more high-pop realms in comparison. You do not only play with people from your realm when you pug, and as such there’s far less potential applicants to your pug groups for raids/higher keys.
Considering that Blizzard is actively working against the Alliance, it kind of is yea.
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I find this really interesting because effectively its almost as if an MMO has a community which is something that does seem to have been lost slightly over the years. But lets not open that can of worms.
Oh yeah not saying that, the majority I’ve done or seen (guildies do etc) providing you use the right tools (rio) pick good compositions (right classes, right covenants) and engage to work at it together the majority of the time they seem to time then. What you often find on the forums is someone slams a group together then flames when 1 thing goes wrong, causes the group to break up and runs to the forums is in my experience a minority. Then again i could just be one lucky chap!
Yeah if you know what you are doing you can definitely succeed in high keys as Alliance, it will just take you more time to form groups or to find groups.
There is no real noticeable difference even in end-game unless you’re actively top 100 raiding, which also doesn’t happen by just snapping your fingers. Alliance is just fine for the needs of the 99.9% of players.
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Basically i’ll end here because I feel like i’m kinda parroting 
haha.
That “lost in a crowd” phenomenon, of you playing with nobody you know and relying on the sea of faces of strangers, that works fine if you’re Horde.
Likewise, if you wanna play “old school” with contacts, not PUGGing and running with guildies etc, that works on horde.
With alliance, if you do it the “old school” way, you will find pretty much zero difference between your experience and a horde player.
However if you wish to play the MMO the “modern way” where you run with people you never see again and just totally random it up, you will have difficulties doing the higher end on alliance with this approach.
As said in BFA I joined a M+ and dungeon community in the second aptch and from that point onwards I was running decent keys at a reasoanble (not top end) speed and was also going at stuff like hardmode mechagon very early after it’s release and coming out the other side. I certainly did not feel like my “being alliance” stopped me doing anything. If I wanted to do a difficulty, I ran it.
Maybe my cap was too low because i ignored mythic raiding and I wasn’t fussed running keys over 15, but everything below those? Very straightforward. I’d log in, post in comms chat after greeting folks about a key and we’d be off in about 5-10 minutes.
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No i appreciate your input, ive been horde for BFA and SL so im very out of the picture as to what its actually like.
Part of me is tempted to give Silvermoon ago just to see what happens and how it ends up for someone with 0 contacts coming to a new server/faction
The more popular faction will have more people in its respective LFG section, though. A Horde guild has a larger pool to recruit from, too.
I don’t know how much bigger the LFG section is when compared, but Alliance side still has enough groups to satisfy the need. As for guilds, depends entirely on your realm, you won’t be recruiting outside of that unless you’re a mythic guild (again, not a noticeable difference for most).
I found there are less whiners and generally less idiots on horde, but saying that I mostly play alliance as that’s where my friends play. Top end raiding, couldn’t tell you as it has never interested me.
I felt like it was easier to find groups for raids/m+ on my Horde alt back in 8.3 when I still tried to keep a mage up on both factions. Takes you less time to form a group and you have the right to be picky with the applicants for a smooth clear because there’s more good players on Horde.
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It’s not that bad. There’s less pugs, but to be fair I kinda thing this is because the alliance is more organized in communities and guilds. Finding a good casual guild on the alliance (Ravencrest) is shockingly easy. You’ll stumble into one just by walking around.
Endgame is totally viable on the alliance. The forums make it seem like 95% of the population is Horde and that’s not true. It’s probably like 55% to 45%. Casual pvp as the alliance is simply better because you have the 1min queue times. People talk about how the horde always wins, but in my experience this is not the case. Who wins seems to differ based on time of day more than anything else.
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YES
/hug Gnome.
One of my many many many many gnomes for you to hug back, if you want.
It’s totally fine to play Alliance. There’s no real bad or good, just play what enjoy.
I feel it’s kinda like excessive min/maxing. You don’t have to, unless you want to be the best of the best. Then some choices may seem bad.
I’ve played both sides at medium (heroic raids) level over the years. The differences are opportunity, people’s reasons for playing, and “quality” of available players (endgame-wise).
Mostly visible if you’re pugging or playing on a realm that isn’t Silvermoon or Ravencrest.
Compared to Horde, Alliance side has a lot more players whose mindset is “This is a game, it shouldn’t take any effort because effort isn’t fun and games should be fun. Everyone should be nice to me and not demand anything, but they should also take me to content that I need, and the content should give me ilvl upgrades and cool transmogs or it’s not worth my time”.
Most of the progress-minded people researched realms and chose one of the two Alliance gigarealms, or realmhopped there.
A few people pointed out Alliance mostly stick to guilds (and mostly on the two big realms). This is very true and contributes to why Alliance looks so much worse to a pug player.
It’s not unplayably bad. But if you’re wanting to progress mythic raids at a reasonable pace for example, you have to know to pick between Ravencrest and Silvermoon and tolerate the potential login queues and lag. If you want to play on lower population realms on either side, lowering your expectations and being willing to teach people is a must. Also pug raids and M+ groups fill slower than on Horde, so it’s important to reserve a lot of extra time for anything you try to pug.
Havent encountered any login queue on ravencrest until i left the server not even a year ago. Lag was WM or World Boss related.
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This is good to know, thanks! Some of my friends complain about the state of Silvermoon during patch days and raid openings, since Ravencrest is even larger I assumed it was similar.
Silvermoon is larger. 12,518 Players on Ravencrest compared to 22,824 on Silvermoon. Also nearly double the amount of ranked guilds. Full doesnt automatically mean full on the realm list menu since they tweaked that years ago.
Silvermoons counterpart would be Draenor.
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